Over the three years that it has taken to create the Ancient Mariner Big Read, the project has gained personal significance for its contributors.
Following on from our Moby-Dick Big Read of 2012, we split the 150 verses of The Rime into 40 sections, to be read by performers, writers, poets and even Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself – a sixth generation nephew of the poet, whom we recorded in the Devon church where the first Sam was baptised by his minister father. Time to resurrect it for a new poetry-hungry audience then, with a free-to-access digital project, the Ancient Mariner Big Readcurated by myself and artists Angela Cockayne and Sarah Chapman, and hosted by the University of Plymouth’s Art Institute. Lines including “All creatures great and small” and “Water, water, everywhere” have become part of the lexicon. From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, to Fleetwood Mac, Iron Maiden and Public Image Ltd’s “Albatross” – a screech of post-punk angst sung by John Lydon – it is the one poem that almost everyone can quote.
It is not despite but because of its narcotic wildness that The Rime became one of the most referenced works of poetry ever. ‘The slain albatross hangs around the fated sailor’s neck like a broken cross’ Photograph: Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image
0 kommentar(er)
